Garlax's armor rolls two d8 and has two opportunities to stop the single die roll of the spear. Attack rolls and defense rolls are always sorted in descending order and compared.

Orc 2 rolls 5+1 = 6 (d6+1), vs 6, 1 for Garlax armor, the armor stops the second blow also and Garlax takes no damage. Had the orc been lucky and rolled a 6 his damage would have been 7, clearly piercing Garlax's armor and inflicting damage.

Garlax attacks Orc 1 with a 15 and hits

Garlax rolls damage 8(7+1[strength]), vs 3, 2 for Orc 1's armor. The orc's lesser armor protects only with two d4 +1. They can only get values between 2 and 5 this Garlax's better weapon has a better opportunity at injuring them. Even with two opportunities to defeat Garlax's single die damage roll it is an uphill climb for them.

Garlax's hit goes through and delivers a deadly blow to the orc. The orc's armor rating (AR) absorbs 2 HP and lets 6 through to the scared orc.

If basic rules are used the Orc takes 6 DC points of damage.

With the bleeding wounds rules 20% go to DC and the rest to hit points. The orc takes 2 DC points and 4 HP. A terrible blow that takes the orc to his knees. He's still alive, but barely.

Round 2
Initiative, orcs win again

Orc 1 is down on the ground stunned from the blow
Orc 2 rolls a 2 and misses

Garlax decides to concentrate on the standing orc. He rolls a 9 and misses.

Round 3
Initiative, Garlax wins

Garlax rolls a 3 and misses by a long shot

Orc 1 is still stunned
Orc 2 rolls a 15 and hits
Orc2 rolls 4+1 = 5 (spear) vs 8 and 3 from Garlax armor. The blow is stopped by the armor.

Round 4
Initiative, Orcs win

Orc 1 is still stunned
Orc 2 rolls a 5 and misses

Garlax rolls an 18 and hits rolling 3 (2+1[strength]) vs 3, 1 from the Orcs armor. The orc is just barely saved by his armor.

Round 6
Orc 1 has gotten up and is ready to fight, but is worried about the outcome now. He begins to retreat. Orc 2 finding himself alone steps back as well. Garlax pushes forward and attacks winning the initiative, but missing the attack.

Round 8
Garlax looses initiative and is hit by Orc 1 and is saved by his armor again ( 4 attack vs 6, 2 defense) while Orc 2 misses again.

Garlax swings at Orc 2 and misses, but wins the initiative on the next round.

Round 9
He hits Orc 2 and injures him (7 attack, vs 5, 2 defense). Orc 2's armor takes another 2 points of damage (AR) and the orc takes 5 points of damage, 2 to DC and 3 to HP leaving him dead on the ground with 0 HP.

Orc 1 looks up and drops his weapon surrendering to our hero. He's been close to death enough for today. Garlax approaches him cautiously wondering what to do. Spare his life or behead him... what would you do?

So, should caracter wounds keep bleeding in the game? How do we determine if such a wound exists and how much bleeding does it produce? How does it affect mechanics? With current rules a character fights until his hit points are nearly gone. If you knew certain wounds would bleed out would you be more careful in combat? I'm quite sure you would. Would this improve gaming or worsen it? Clearly players would not be so gun ho to go into battle. But when they did, it would certainly make an interesting match. Also, let us remember (ehem to the GMs), that creatures would play by the same rules and thus be more careful. A lot of GMs play as if their NPCs were cannon fodder, but unless they're insects or undead most have families to care for and would like to go home in one piece. Not to mention without an infection to tend to. So characters would be more vulnerable, but at the same time more imposing to NPC and monsters.

So after reviewing the vitality and wound point system in D&D and finding not to convincing I'd like to propose the following. Characters have hit points (HP) as usual, but above those they have damage capacity points (DC). Which are as the name says points for pure physical punishment.

System one, simple:

Characters can suffer damage to their DC without much hassle. After all DC is gone they begin to suffer real bleeding wounds on their HP. Each would could then be said to bleed 1 HP per round.

System two, realistic:

Characters can suffer up to 20% of their DC in one strike without causing a wound. Extra damage goes directly to HP and starts a bleeding wound. So if I have 20 DC points any damage above 4 will lead to HP loss and a bleeding wound. Bleeding wounds need to be tended quickly to stop bleeding (say 1 or 2 combat rounds).

Characters with wounds could have penalties added to their movement or attack rolls. Say after 25% of HP loss, after 50% loss, etc.

Comments? Does the rule sound reasonable and relatively easy to implement?

Thursday, February 23, 2012

For this article on comparing medieval weapons and armor for a new RPG combat system I ran some tests on the new combat mechanics and here are the results. The table below shows each weapon going up against a type of armor. The each armor has a value below and a value to the right. For example padding or quilt has its name followed by (1d4*1+0) that is its defense roll. Next to it is the value 15. Which are the armors hit points so to speak. When they reach cero the armor is rendered useless. The values when battle axe and padding meet are -14 and 3. Those values represent the amount of rounds needed to reduce the armor to nothing ( on the hp column : 3) and the damage inflicted to the character in the process ( on the armor's column : -14 ). These values represent the average combat rounds and damage delivered to the character by averaging 10000 (ten thousand) encounters. Hidden from view is also the armor's rating. A value that has to be overcome by the die rolls to damage the character. This info was omitted from the table for clarity.

The purpose of this table is to compare "tech levels" for weapons and armor. Obviously flint weapons should be effective against padding or soft leather (think mesoamerican cultures). So primitive stone weapons should become less effective to harder iron age armors.

Note: there is a limit to the rounds that are run. The value is 100. Meaning an armor that has 100 under it's hp value was not worn out during the tests.

Now lets study the table better and see if it makes sense. The idea being that we slowly balance the weapons out to make sense under the premise that mankind invents a weapon from a bone (Space Odyssey theme playing in background) and then mankind invents something to counter it. Then stone weapons then leather armor, then bronce weapons, then bronce armor, etc.

For example a flint dagger has (-10, 7). It took the weapon 7 rounds to wear the armor out and in doing so it delivered 10 hp of damage, 1.4 per round on the average. Given that the flint dagger does 1d6 and would on the average do 3.5 hp per hit the armor does provide a good protection to the character. Soft leather is quite an improvement over padding. For example the same dagger takes 22 rounds to wear the armor out and allows only 16 hit points. That's .72 hp per round. Since there is no damage less than cero we interpret this as the leather's armor better stopping power. The padding has an AR (armor rating) of 2 and the leather of 3. Any damage above 2 penetrates the armor and is delivered to the character (prior subtraction of the AR to the damage, 4 points against padding become 2 to the character or 1 if he or she is using leather). This slightly better AR and the significantly better die roll 1d6 for leather vs 1d4 for padding give the character this added protection.

How much better? Well look at it this way. The dagger does 3.5 hp on the average. In 22 rounds that comes out to 77 hp of average damage generated. Now the armor took 40 (that's its hp capacity before being worn out) and let through 16. That's a total of 56 hp. The 21 point difference between the 77 generated and the 56 absorbed is the armors effectiveness. Those 21 hp were "dissipated" by the armor with no damage to the armor or the character. Studded leather being harder still, takes even more damage to defeat. It took 49 rounds to wear out its 60 hp and let through only 26 to the character. That's 172 hp that were developed by the weapon, but only 86 caused damage ( 60 to the armor and 26 to the character ). That's quite an improvement. Leather had a 27% efficiency ( 21 / 77 ) vs studded leather's 50% ( 86 / 172 ). PS, I'm making a mental note to do a table with all these values for the next post.

if it is a hit defender can parry or dodge, defender needs to roll higher than attacker roll on a d20 (adding defender bonuses)

if the attack isn't parried or dodged then weapon and armor rolls are thrown

roll weapon (add weapon bonuses and strength bonuses when applicable)

roll armor (add armor bonuses)

match die ordered by descending value

cancel those that armor is greater than or equal to weapon roll

add remaining die rolls

compare sum with armor rating

if less than armor rating only armor takes damage

if greater than armor rating armor takes damage and amount over armor rating is received by the caracter, creature, vehicle or underlying structure

turn ends and next player's begins

As a side note I think some sort of morale or coolness should be included in certain scenarios. The player has to be conscious that the character is under great stress being under fire and if his coolness breaks the could turn against him. Any ideas? Maybe some saving throw for excessive damage received? Some morale roll? Opinions...

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Here's a little more insight on the combat mechanics in my search for the holy grail of roleplay damage calculation. As posted previously I'm looking for a balanced system that creates an incentive for actual roleplay on the battle field rather than a stand and deliver + cure light wounds mechanic. All this around a game system based on Rifts and D&D. Allowing for technology and magic, mechanics and supernatural beings to coexist at some time and thus do battle in real terms without instantly obliterating half the population with a blast.

In this post I'll review the basic combat between a dagger and leather armor. We start off from the basics that the hit has been achieved and it is done by some d20 roll that has no armor modifier involved (as in classic D&D and AC/THACO). It is a basic hit the object roll that includes skill, ability and some luck.

Now as you might recall a dagger does 1d4 and a leather armor protects with 2d4. Running the numbers on a computer we get the table below. Before you jump to it let me explain it a bit.

The computer runs 100000 combat rounds and totals the outcome. For the first entry (Roll 1d4 * 1 + 0 vs 2d4 * 1 + 0) 22.03% of all attacks breach the armor defense. If the armor roll is deducted from the damager roll an average of 1.43 hit points of damage are delivered. If we play by a passthrough all or nothing rule and no damage is deducted from the attack roll then an average of 3.57 hit points of damage are done. To clarify:

Dagger roll : 4
Leather roll : 3, 2

The dagger overcomes the leather. In a passthrough rule the dagger does the full 4 points to the character, otherwise the 3 is deducted for a 1 hp damage to the character. This leads to the difference between 1.43 hp for blocked damage and 3.57 for full (passthrough) damage.

The next entry (Roll 1d4 * 1 + 0 vs 2d4 * 1 + 1), the armor is slightly better. Maybe its magical or maybe its special dragon skin leather or just hardened futuristic stuff. In this case each roll is benefited by an extra 1. For example:

Leather then blocks the dagger's roll and the character receives no damage. In this scenario the leather armor becomes more resistant and only 7.69 of all rolls breach the armor. But when they do and you're playing with all or nothing then more damage (3.8 hp) is delivered on the average. Further down you see +2 and +3 leather armor which become impenetrable to daggers (at least conventional ones).

Roll 1d4 * 1 + 0 vs 2d4 * 1 + 0

Stats:

rounds

% hits

blocked damage

full damage

Full:

22029

22.03%

1.43

hp

3.57

hp

Partial:

0

0.00%

?

hp

?

hp

Blocked:

77971

77.97%

0

hp

0

hp

Roll 1d4 * 1 + 0 vs 2d4 * 1 + 1

Stats:

rounds

% hits

blocked damage

full damage

Full:

7689

7.69%

1.2

hp

3.8

hp

Partial:

0

0.00%

?

hp

?

hp

Blocked:

92311

92.31%

0

hp

0

hp

Roll 1d4 * 1 + 0 vs 2d4 * 1 + 2

Stats:

rounds

% hits

blocked damage

full damage

Full:

1538

1.54%

1

hp

4

hp

Partial:

0

0.00%

?

hp

?

hp

Blocked:

98462

98.46%

0

hp

0

hp

Roll 1d4 * 1 + 0 vs 2d4 * 1 + 3

Stats:

rounds

% hits

blocked damage

full damage

Full:

0

0.00%

?

hp

?

hp

Partial:

0

0.00%

?

hp

?

hp

Blocked:

100000

100.00%

0

hp

0

hp

Now lets run a sword (1d8) against the same batch of armors. A sword has a starting 60.61% chance of going through the armor. As the armor is hardened magically it becomes harder 48.73%, 35.80% and 23.41% respectively. And you notice how the damage increases when it actually does go through from roughly 6 to 7.3 (aprox 25% increase). Which is also realistic in terms that the force delivered in such blows should be higher thus only high damage hits achieve any damage at al.

As you can see basic cloth armor has no chance whatsoever at stopping a bastard sword. The best it can do is a partial block (23.68% of the time) and stop one of the swords die. Scale leather has a 25% chance of stopping all damage from the sword. Chain mail aprox 35% and scale mail 40%.

Roll 2d8 * 1 + 0 vs 1d6 * 1 + 0

Stats:

Full:

76321

76.32%

6.91

hp

9.99

hp

Partial:

23679

23.68%

2.15

hp

2.15

hp

Blocked:

0

0.00%

0

hp

0

hp

Roll 2d8 * 1 + 0 vs 2d6 * 1 + 0

Stats:

Full:

41083

41.08%

5.68

hp

11.56

hp

Partial:

33878

33.88%

2.17

hp

5.82

hp

Blocked:

25039

25.04%

0

hp

0

hp

Roll 2d8 * 1 + 0 vs 3d6 * 1 + 0

Stats:

Full:

28846

28.85%

5.07

hp

12.31

hp

Partial:

36246

36.25%

2

hp

6.47

hp

Blocked:

34908

34.91%

0

hp

0

hp

Roll 2d8 * 1 + 0 vs 4d6 * 1 + 0

Stats:

Full:

22478

22.48%

4.58

hp

12.84

hp

Partial:

36731

36.73%

1.89

hp

6.82

hp

Blocked:

40791

40.79%

0

hp

0

hp

So how does all this fit into combat. Well lets say you always work on a 10 to hit on a d20 for an unskilled character. I roll and get a 6 then I miss, but if I roll a 16 I hit. I then roll damage and let the defender's armor roll damage to stop the damage.

Of course there are skills and abilities to consider. A proficient swordsmaster would get +4 to hit plus say -2 for the targets dexterity. If so an 8 not a 10 would be needed to hit. Yet once the hit to the target is achieved then the weapons and armors sort it out. I think this gives out some very nice numbers as to the probability to do damage and the amount of damage delivered. It also invites the character to actually try to dodge, parry and take cover not just stand and deliver.